Rwandan guerrillas declare ceasefire

Arusha, Tanzania - Rwandan guerrillas yesterday declared a unilateral ceasefire in their war with government forces, after the deaths of an estimated 100,000 people in more than two weeks of fighting and ethnic slaughter.

'The international community sees this as a way of stopping the massacres, so we have obliged,' the secretary-general of the Rwanda Patriotic Front, Theogene Rudasingwa, said.

The ceasefire is to begin at midnight tomorrow. The United States called on the two sides on Friday to agree to an immediate ceasefire, and said it was prepared to help efforts to arrange a political settlement.

UN peacekeepers evacuated from Rwanda may return if talks progress, the UN envoy, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, said. He added he had been authorised to keep 1,000 troops in Nairobi 'so that if we get a ceasefire they can be brought back quickly'. Reuter, AFP